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Listen, air travel can be frustrating. We get it. You've got to get your friend to drop you off at the airport even though you're totally not close enough to reasonably expect him to drop you off at the airport. That's, like, Stage 5 stuff and you're clearly only at Stage 2 maybe Stage 3. Then you've got to check your bags and get through security only to find out that your gate has been changed and your flight delayed. We get it. The last thing you want to deal with while you're sitting on the tarmac is someone else's wailing baby. But, that doesn't make it OK to get all racist and SLAP THE BABY ACROSS THE FACE.

Joe Rickey Hundley has been charged with simple assault following an incident onDelta Airlines Flight 721 to Atlanta last week. Hundley allegedly used a racial slur while telling the 33-year-old woman sitting next to him that she should get her 2-year-old son to shut up. Eventually, Hundley allegedly slapped the child across the face with an open hand.

After Hundley hit the child, Agent Cheney reported, Bennett received assistance from several other passengers, including Todd Wooten, who was in seat 16C. Wooten told agents that he “heard derogatory language coming from the rear of the aircraft” and got up to investigate. “According to Mr. Wooten,” Cheney noted, “he saw Joe Rickey Hundley strike” the toddler.

This isn't Hundley's first run-in with the law. The 60-year-old previously pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault rap after a domestic dispute which supposedly saw him brandish a wine corkscrew as a weapon. [The Smoking Gun]